Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).
The Man Who Went Through Unquenchable Fire
Advent is about the different ways that Jesus comes to us. There are four ways that Jesus comes to us, corresponding to the four Sundays of Advent. Last Sunday we celebrated Jesus' coming at the end of the world. Today we celebrate the coming of Jesus into our hearts and lives as savior, enabling us to repent or change our mind and attitude and to receive him in our hearts, to live there.
This is the coming that the great Reformer Bishop St. Charles Borromeo wrote about in his pastoral letter which is the second reading of the Office of Readings in the Monday of the first week of Advent. Here is a portion of that letter.
"The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace."
In the first reading Isaiah describes to us what kind of man is this who is coming into our hearts. He is a descendant of Jesse who was the father of King David, the spirit of the Lord rests upon him. He has a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD. He fills the earth with the knowledge of God as the water covers the sea. He is the man sought after by the non-Jewish people like us and he has a glorious dwelling among us in our hearts. This is Isaiah's picture of the man Jesus who comes to dwell within us.
The second reading tells us what happens when we receive into our heart this man whom Isaiah describes in the first reading. We are given by the God of endurance and encouragement the ability to think in harmony with one another. Then we welcome one another, as Christ welcomed us, for the glory of God. Then we glorify God for his mercy, praising him and singing praises to his name. This happens when Jesus comes into our hearts.
And the Gospel tells us through John the Baptist what to do to welcome the coming of Jesus in our hearts. John says that we repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This kingdom of heaven is the kingship or rule of Jesus in our hearts. The word "repent" in Greek basically means a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of attitude. Jesus cannot come into our heart and rule over it if we do not change our mind, our mentality, our attitude. John gives us a warning. If we do not produce fruits of repentance we will be like trees whose roots will be uprooted and thrown into the fire. John contrasts his baptism with that of Jesus. He baptizes with water to show that a person has changed his mind, has changed his heart. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus gathers the wheat into his barn but the chaff he burns with unquenchable fire.
Notice carefully what John the Baptist announced to the people who were listening to him. He told them that he baptized persons with water but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. What is surprising, painful and yet wonderful is that the first person Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire is himself.
We recall what is recorded in the tenth chapter of Mark's Gospel. The disciples James and John, sons of Zebedee, asked Jesus that one of them would sit at his right hand and the other would sit at his left hand. Jesus in answer asked them if they could drink of the cup that he would drink and be baptized with the baptism that he, Jesus, would be baptized.
Here Jesus refers to another baptism that he himself would undergo. Previous to this, in the first chapter of Mark's Gospel we read that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist with water. This was Jesus' baptism with water. This was his first baptism. He was immersed by John the Baptist in the river Jordan.
But Jesus, nine chapters later is described as someone who will be baptized again, this time not with water but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This is the second baptism of Jesus when he would be immersed not in water but in the power of the Holy Spirit and in fire.
It is surprising because it is Jesus who baptizes himself with fire. It is painful because fire is painful. It is wonderful because by this baptism Jesus delivered us from our sins.
In simple terms Jesus went through suffering as though through fire to save us. The Church doctor St. Catherine of Siena has a very enlightening passage in her book DIALOGUE which describes to us this second baptism of Jesus. She says, "So, by his death the wrath of the Father is pacified, having wrought justice on the person of his son; so he has satisfied justice and has satisfied mercy, releasing the human race from the hands of demons."
In other words the second baptism of Jesus is his suffering and death on the cross which saved us from our sins. This was his baptism by fire. Again St. Catherine writes, "He (Jesus) was our justice, for he took on himself all our offenses and injustices, and performed your obedience, Eternal Father, which you imposed on him, when you clothed him with our humanity, our human nature and likeness."
Jesus was the first one to taste the unquenchable fire that John the Baptist mentions in the ending of our Gospel reading. According to the same doctor St. Catherine this fire is unquenchable because it is not burning a material thing which would be consumed by fire but it is burning with the love of God which cannot be quenched, cannot be put out. She describes God as "Fire above every fire, because you are the only Fire who burn without consuming, and consume all sin and self-love found in the soul, not afflicting her, but fattening her with insatiable love . . . Supreme and Eternal Fire, Abyss of Charity." God as eternal fire is fire that has no beginning and no end. This is unquenchable fire. This is the fire into which the human Jesus was immersed, was baptized to clean us of our sins.
And he had to do this, go through this unquenchable fire of God's love in suffering because he can not come and live within us if we are sinful. He has to transform us first into just, righteous, holy human beings before he can live within us. This fire, as St. Catherine says, consumes all sin and self-love in us so that Jesus can come and make his dwelling in our hearts. This is too wonderful for us to know.
For our prayer we borrow from yesterday's Antiphon to the Magnificat of Mary in the Church's Evening Prayer.
Let us bow our heads now. "Come to us, Lord, and may your presence be our peace; with hearts made perfect we shall rejoice in your companionship for ever." Amen.
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Note for the readers:
The Mass readings are from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our Lectionary gets the readings.
NAB stands for New American Bible (before it was revised). This is the translation I use. Unless otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.
AV stands for Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is the one known more by the English speaking world.
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